The Story without a Title
by thebasketcase1323
Summary: Veela Trope. Hermione's mother kept her veela heritage from her, but as her fourth year at Hogwarts approaches the truth is exposed. Suddenly lost in a world she doesn't understand- a terrible feeling for the bookworm- Hermione struggles to adjust to her new circumstances. Too bad she hates her mate. She'll do anything to protect them both - by never telling him the truth.


Author's Note: Hey everyone! I couldn't help but write this particular trope, so here goes! I must note (lest my OCD, perfectionist side get the better of me) that the first chapter is mostly set in the past. It is an explanation of Hermione's life thus far from her family's point of view. It is in the last paragraph that we finally join her in present time. I don't really know why I wrote it that way, but whatever! Side note- I actually wrote some of this about two years ago, so bear with me in terms of updating. I am editing and revising as we speak and there should be no problems in the future, but let's just call this little explanation my insurance policy. P.S. I am looking for a beta reader! Please message me if you are interested!

Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own the Wizarding World or anything within it.

Prologue

Hermione was born on a chilly evening in September of 1979. As her father held her in his arms for the first time, he had but one thought: to protect and love this little bundle at all costs. His mind was filled with blissfully happy thoughts.

The same could not be said for his wife on the bed nearby. She had avoided her mother since announcing the pregnancy, knowing what inevitably would be coming. She could not; however, keep her own mother from the birth of her first grandchild. No, she wouldn't be that cruel just for the sake of avoiding an uncomfortable conversation. She would be brave and get it over with. Her daughter, Hermione, would take after her in that respect (not that they knew this just yet).

She watched as her husband, smiling down at the wrinkly mass in his arms, left the room in search of a nurse. She took a deep breath and sat up, patting the edge of the bed in an invitation for her mother to sit. Jean would have none of that though, she was too busy pacing back and forth, an expression of concern marring her features.

"Mom—" she began.

"Did you even bother to discuss this with your husband, or did you recklessly, and foolishly I might add, risk the consequences without telling him?"

Jean's voice was scathing, a harsher reprimand than she could ever remember coming from her own mother's mouth. It made her flinch. As much as she tried to stop herself from that knee jerk reaction, she couldn't. She quickly covered it up with anger, ready to defend herself.

"Mom, it's not like she'll ever show any signs. You and I didn't…"

"You don't know!" Jean burst out, "You remember how it affected your grandmother. If I had known of the true risks at the time, I probably wouldn't have ever had you! It's just not worth it."

Those words stung. She felt tears encroaching and quickly blinked them away, furious and hurt at her mother's attitude.

"She's what, 1/16th veela? Come on Mom, if you and I don't have the traits, what makes you think she will? And I am a grown woman. I knew the risks when I saw the two pink lines. It was MY decision, not yours. Anyway, John doesn't need to know because Hermione is going to grow up to be a completely normal and respectable _HUMAN_ being. If you are just going to fight me on this and continue to act ridiculous then there is nothing more to discuss and I would kindly ask you to leave."

She crossed her arms and shot her mother a look of finality that signaled an end to the conversation. It would be up to her mother to decide what to do now. If Jean decided to leave, well then that would be that, and good riddance!

She eyed her mother's expression. She saw the moment in which she gave up—saw the look of disappointment—and watched in indignance as her mother left the room, temporarily closing the door on any semblance of a mother-daughter relationship.

It wasn't until about five minutes later that it truly hit her, what had happened, and her husband returned from handing off Hermione to a friendly nurse to find his wife in a distraught state, tears running down her cheeks with no clear source. He didn't say anything, even when she got snot all over the front of his crisp button-down. He just laid with her as she despaired long into the night.

It wasn't until Hermione was starting her first year of Primary School that her mother and grandmother would meet again. News reached the Granger household in mid-August that Grandma Jean had fallen ill. It was the type of vague illness that often targeted the senior community. She was becoming forgetful and had already fallen once and broken her wrist. Luckily the neighbors were around to help her that time, but questions quickly arose as to whether it was such a good idea for Jean to continue living alone.

Being the only living relatives capable of providing the needed care and support, all heads turned toward the Granger family and their young daughter, Hermione.

What sane parents wouldn't want their daughter to get a chance to know her grandmother before she, well… went— something everyone was sure wouldn't take long now.

So they took her in. Hermione and her father were delighted to welcome her. John Granger couldn't understand why his wife was so apprehensive. It was her mother after all. Just because they hadn't really seen her since Hermione was born didn't change the facts. They most certainly couldn't turn away a family member in need.

After only a few weeks of sharing the same space, Grandma Jean mentioned the first in what would be many observed oddities regarding Hermione.

Jean and her daughter were sitting alone in the study one evening. Mr. Granger had taken Hermione on one of their walks around the neighbourhood and wouldn't be back for at least a half hour. Mrs. Granger was busy finishing up transfer paperwork for a difficult patient she was frankly glad to see go to another practice. As she signed her name on the last document, she heard her mother clear her throat for about the tenth time since she had entered the quiet study. Unable to put it off any longer, she shuffled her paperwork together, slipped it into the file, and looked up at her mother expectantly.

"Yes, Mother?" she asked in an overly polite voice.

"Oh dear, It's nothing. I was just thinking how odd it seems to be that Hermione's hair is so much lighter than yours and mine. Quite curious, wouldn't you say?"

Her tone practically screamed with the hidden meaning that dripped from her every word and her daughter knew right away exactly what she was getting at.

"Well mother, I wouldn't have expected you to take such an interest in your granddaughter seeing as how it was _your_ decision to leave and we've heard nothing from you since," she struggled to maintain her civil tone, "but since you've asked, it doesn't surprise me in the least. You see, if you were even slightly more observant you may have picked up on the fact that my husband's hair is considerably lighter than mine."

"Of course, of course, Dear, I was just pointing out that my hair was darker than my mothers and your hair darker than mine. It's… interesting that Hermione doesn't follow that tradition, don't you think?"

Mrs. Granger dropped her file into the correct desk drawer and slammed it shut. She stood up abruptly, refusing to meet her mother's eyes as she huffed out of the room, the sound of her stomping feet audible as she trudged up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door shut behind her.

Jean seemed to know to keep her mouth shut after that. She dropped hints, but nothing more. That is, until a rather embarrassing incident involving a neighbourhood boy and a hot tea kettle. Little Hermione had been to blame for the incident. The boy in question was a known bully, and certainly deserved what was coming to him after calling another little girl some utterly awful things. No, that was not the part that caught the attention of Grandma Jean. It was the magic used to do it.

Needless to say, it was a surprising bit of clearly focused and powerful magic for such a young witch to make—especially a young witch without a wand. The fact that Hermione was showing signs of magic in and of itself was worrisome. If that gene, which was thought to have died out along with the veela traits when Mrs. Granger had married a muggle, seemed to have cropped up again, who was to say the veela traits wouldn't as well? All of this went through both Jean and Mrs. Granger's head after the incident, but when Jean insisted on bringing it up, her daughter had an explanation already worked out in her mind.

"Well, we can't be sure she's getting this magic from our side of the family, can we?" Mrs. Granger retorted, "Do you know what my mother-in-law's maiden name was?—Abbott! Now, isn't that the surname of a pureblood family or am I mistaken?"

Jean had rolled her eyes, appalled at her daughter's denial of the rather serious situation.

"Besides, even if it is from our side, there's no law saying veela traits and normal magic come as a package deal. She could very well just inherit the magic. You worry for no reason, Mother."

With that, the conversation ended, although whatever small relationship had developed in the time previous was summarily destroyed and tension once again ruled the household.

It was but a week later when something even stranger than a display of magic occurred. Mr. and Mrs. Granger were going over the bills at the kitchen counter while Jean played with her granddaughter in the den, something Mrs. Granger was loath to allow under the current circumstances. They were just starting to discuss whether or not they should switch cable companies when a loud yelp sounded from the den.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger rushed to the room, worried something bad had happened. They walked in to find Hermione surrounded by books on the floor, smiling and giggling happily. Drops of blood were visible on the page in front of her. Mrs. Granger rushed forward to take care of her injured daughter. It was then that she noticed her mother standing up against a bookshelf halfway across the room, white as a sheet and looking like she'd seen death.

"Dear, may I speak to you alone for a moment?" Jean's voice sounded strained.

Mrs. Granger took a second to look Hermione over. She had a little blood on her finger, as if she had received a rather nasty paper cut, but no cut was to be found, just smooth skin. Mrs. Granger shook the weirdness of that out of her head before picking her daughter up and handing her to John with the request that he go clean her up. He gave her an odd look before swiftly carrying Hermione from the room and into the bathroom down the hall.

Mrs. Granger took a deep breath and cautiously approached her mother.

"Mom—"

"I knew it. I could feel it in her. I tried, I always tried, but you wouldn't listen. No, you never listen. Stubborn. Stubborn girl. I tried to warn you. I did. Look what you've done now…" Grandma Jean mumbled to herself almost incoherently.

Mrs. Granger tentatively placed a hand on her mother's shoulder.

"Mom—"

"No!" Jean shouted, jerking out from under her daughter's touch. "I warned you. I told you what would happen if you had a girl," she continued emphatically, "She's going to grow up and you'll become so attached to her, but it'll all be for naught. It'll end badly. Mark my words. It'll end badly just like it did for your grandmother. Why couldn't you have just listened to me?"

The deep sorrow in Jean's eyes frightened her daughter. She was slightly confused. What could have possibly happened with Hermione to provoke such a reaction?

She steered her mother to the old leather armchair in the corner of the room and coaxed her into sitting down. She kneeled in front of her.

"Mom, what happened?" She wasn't quite sure she wanted to know.

"We… we were sitting there. Little 'mione was reading aloud to me. You know how she loves to do that, and… and she must've gotten a paper cut, because one second she was happily reading, and the next second she was bleeding onto the pages and looking up at me, on the brink of tears," she paused and Mrs. Granger placed a hand on her leg, nodding in encouragement for her to continue, "then… then her eyes… Dear, they turned pitch black."

That single sentence hung in the air for a few seconds, the weight of it not lost on either party.

One of the two; however, was not ready to accept the facts.

"Oh, not this again, Mom. Come on, it was probably just a trick of the light."

Grandma Jean may have been getting up there in years, but she was still quite intelligent. She knew what her daughter really meant when she said that. She meant that Jean had come to live with them precisely because her mind was not as sharp as it used to be. Maybe this had something to do with that. Was she seeing things?

"I know what I saw."

Quick to placate her increasingly agitated mother, Mrs. Granger stated, "I know, Mom. I know you _think_ you saw something," she sighed, "Mom, let's face it. You've been looking for things to be out of place since the first day you came to live with us. Hermione is just a normal little girl—albeit a witch—but no matter, there is no veela blood in her." She said this firmly and Jean could see there was no way of convincing her daughter otherwise.

"Maybe you're right. I'd like to lay down for a while. I'm afraid I'm quite worn out. Would you please help me?" Jean was done.

Mrs. Granger helped her mother to bed and tucked her in.

"You know I love you, Mom, right?"

Mrs. Granger was tired; tired of this never-ending fight. She hated the defeated look in her mother's eyes. She hated leaving things the way they were.

"Yes, Dear, I know. I love you too."

Grandma Jean died in her sleep later that night.

The years passed quietly. Mrs. Granger was quick to sweep any strangeness under the rug and they went about their business in blissful ignorance. Hermione received her Hogwarts letter when she turned eleven and her parents had both been ecstatic on her behalf. Everything seemed to be going perfectly, thank you very much. Mrs. Granger even told her husband about the veela business when Hermione reached third year. If Hermione were to develop veela traits they certainly would have shown themselves by then. Certainly, Hermione would've shown signs far before she turned 15, or at least that was the assumption Mrs. Granger was working under.

She wasn't sure why she told her husband. It was out of relief, she guessed. Relief at not having to worry anymore. He was angry for a long while. His wife had kept something seriously important from him and it took time for the trust to return to the relationship. He eventually got over it and their marriage recovered the slight slip. Hermione, for her part, noticed the tension between her parents initially, but soon forgot all about it once it seemed to have eased. Everything was fine, great even.

Until the summer before Hermione's fourth year.

Around two weeks into the summer holiday, Hermione fell ill. She was in bed four days straight with a high fever, sweats, and occasional convulsions. Her parents were distraught. They considered taking her to the local hospital, but then Mrs. Granger noticed something strange about her eyes.

They were pitch black.

All of the years of carefully constructed denial crashed around Mrs. Granger as she was forced to come to terms with the reality on the bed in front her in a matter of seconds.

Her husband was packing a bag, preparing to take Hermione to the hospital. She laid a hand on his forearm, stopping him abruptly in his mad rush.

"Stop. I know what's wrong."

Mr. Granger paused at the look on his wife's face. He was hit by the sudden realization of what Hermione's condition meant. Back when he had found out about his wife's veela ancestry, the first thing he did was research it—a feat not so easily achieved considering he was a muggle. He found the information he sought eventually (he and Hermione shared in their insistent thirst for knowledge) and he knew the signs of a veela reaching maturity. He'd read all about it. The books had said it usually happened far earlier, but it's not like he could deny the evidence when it was clearly right in front of him.

"Well, then."

It was the only thing he could think to say.

He set down the travel bag he had tightly clutched in his fist and walked over to hug his wife. She was stiff in his arms, but after a moment she seemed to grow infinitely smaller, and clutched him back. They both sat down side by side in the chairs they had set up next to Hermione's bed when she had first gotten sick.

And they waited it out.

First the fever broke, and they could tell Hermione's sleep was now the peaceful sleep of an exhausted soul instead of the restless sleep of a sick child with which they had grown accustomed. At the beginning of the fifth day she awoke, bleary eyed and confused, only vaguely aware of what had happened to her.


End file.
